Fellow members,

I want to give everyone an overview of our meeting on Wednesday night.

First, we discussed the Van Meter pilot evaluation. There was great concern and confusion on how the evaluation would work and if it would be tied to pay. We all agreed that there are clear inconsistencies and it is a complex evaluation. There was also insufficient training on something that may have significant impact on your job performance. We decided to meet with the Chief and determine the most important issue and that is, will this evaluation be tied to our pay. We are adamantly against sacrificing our raises for this new evaluation. I will update everyone in the next few weeks after we get some clarification from this Chief.

There were also concerns about the uniform and if we may be wearing long sleeves year round and hats on a regular basis. Some members got the impression from the Chief that we are headed in that direction. I have never heard that from him directly but I will ask the question when we meet with him.

We discussed the pay study and determined it would be unrealistic to ask for any raise this year. With the poor economy, vacancies that have dwindled to less than 30 from 140 just two years ago, and a pay study that shows our pay being competitive it would not be reasonable to attempt to gain any significant raises. With that being said we are concerned about our range adjustment and health insurance premiums. We do not want to lose the range adjustment again or have are premiums raised. I have contacted Keith Wilder, Firefight union president, and we plan to meet with Mr. Allen in the next few weeks to discuss our pay and benefits and how they may be affected this year.

Finally, we have grown to well over 500 members. In the last two academies there were 40 officers that graduated and 35 of them have joined the union. With our growth it is important to have proper representation throughout each district. Ideally I would like to see at least 3 reps in each district. With transfers some of our reps have moved to different districts and leaves us with very few in some. For example, Scott Rolfe our longest serving, most loyal district rep has been transferred to drugs and vice which leaves us with no one from the SWD. He will be hard to replace but we need a representative in that district. I am looking for members who would be willing to serve as a district rep. There will not be very much responsibility. I would only ask if they attend two or three meeting a year. I will also ask they read my emails. Information is extremely important. I will send our reps more emails that include the progress we are making at every level. Most of our members will delete long emails like this one and read only the ones that are a couple of paragraphs. I understand that but I also ask that our district reps read all the email and have good knowledge of your union so they can help get our message our and encourage more officers to join. So if you took the time to read this whole email you would probably be good candidate for district rep.

Thanks for your time and support.

Rick Armstrong